"Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), the primary cause of the blistering genital disease that infects roughly one in five U.S. women of childbearing age, may play a role in autism, according to a new study. Active infection with the virus in early pregnancy doubles the chance that a male fetus will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) early in life, researchers have found in studying one large Norwegian population. The finding does not mean that all pregnant women with an active HSV-2 infection will give birth to autistic children, but that—in a subset of women thought to be genetically predisposed—the infection may be one of an unknown number of triggers for the condition.
“It’s a very important paper,” says Karen Jones, a behavioral neuroimmunologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved with study. “It’s also really important to remember that not every mom who has HSV-2 is going to have a kid with autism.”
Population studies in the United States and other high-income countries put the prevalence of ASD at 1% to 2%, with higher rates for men; the prevalence in U.S. boys is one in 42, or 2.4%. Using data from the Norway Autism Birth Cohort, the scientists—led by a team at Columbia University—identified 442 mothers of children with ASD and matched them with 464 mothers who gave birth to unaffected children of the same sex, in the same month and year, from 1999 to 2008. For all the women, blood samples were available from midpregnancy and the time of birth. The researchers tested the samples for antibodies to five microbes that are known to damage fetuses: Cytomegalovirus, Toxoplasma gondii, rubella, HSV-1, and HSV-2."
Comentário do Bloguista: As mulheres que contraem herpes genital nos primeiros meses de gravidez têm o dobro de chances de dar à luz um bebé autista, acredita-se que a resposta imunológica da mãe ao vírus da herpes HSV-2 poderá afetar o desenvolvimento do sistema nervoso central do feto, aumentando o risco de autismo", explicou Milada Mahic, cientista do Centro de Infecção e Imunidade da Universidade de Columbia em Nova York, autora principal deste estudo. Segundo a mesma fonte é o primeiro estudo a demonstrar que a resposta imunológica de uma mulher pode ter efeitos nocivos no cérebro do feto em desenvolvimento e influenciar a probabilidade de que a criança tenha autismo.
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